


The First Last Day

by TolkienGirl



Series: Vignettes of Valinor [6]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Brotherly Angst, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, POV First Person, Swords, Yes this is the one where Feanor almost kills Fingolfin, it's fine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-11-09 10:21:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17999990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: Fingon watches his world fall apart.





	1. Chapter 1

On the days before feasts in Tirion, it has long been customary for my cousins to gather in my family’s gardens. The Fëanorians live just beyond the bounds of the city, since my half-uncle refuses always to be contained and sometimes to be civil. Grandfather Finwë and Grandmother Indis keep chambers for them in the palace, hopeful that they will use them, but to these they rarely go.

Of late, our garden meetings have been rare too. Unrest flourishes among our family like vines: some of us would pull it out by the roots if we could; others seem intent on cultivating it.

I am of the former lot, of course, and thus relief courses over me when I see my two eldest half-cousins enter the gate as the twilight mingling of Laurelin and Telperion sets in.

They are talking in low voices, and when I leap up to welcome them, they seem surprised.

“Findekáno!” Maitimo is terribly grand today—silver drips from his ears and neck, his robes are the color of dark wine, darker than his hair, and his fingers glitter with rings that pinch mine when I clasp his hand.

“We thought to find this place deserted,” Makalaurë says, laying a hand on my shoulder in greeting. “And everyone gone in.” He wears the same colors as his brother, and they should suit his pallor and dark hair all the better, but he is a lesser star in Maitimo’s light.

We all are.

I say, “It is early, yet.”

Maitimo is chewing his lip. He only does this when he is worried, and my joy at seeing them fades somewhat. “Yes,” he answers. “I suppose it is.”

“Then sit and talk,” I suggest. I, for one, am not eager to sit around the long tables and pick over meats and fruits that, while delicious, sit like lead in an uneasy stomach.

The vines of unrest are inescapable.

They exchange one of those famed Fëanorian glances, by which they seem to communicate wordlessly yet eloquently, and sit by either side of me on the long stone bench.

“You have braided gold into your hair,” Makalaurë observes, inspecting one plait with his long fingers. Maitimo is busy fretting with his rings.

I ask, “Do you like it?”

“This is why Tyelko teases you,” Makalaurë tells me, amusement dancing in his eyes. “You are among the eldest of our cousins, yet you ask whether we  _like_  your appearance.”

I feel myself blushing deeply, and that of course makes both Makalaurë and Maitimo laugh. It sounds genuine, and my heart warms a little from its earlier chill.

“I only ask the two of you. I care not at all for Tyelko’s opinion.”

Makalaurë chuckles. “What about Findaráto’s?”

“Perhaps.”

“Atarinkë will give you his opinion whether you want it or not,” Maitimo says. “His appearance consumes him. He stole my favorite earrings last week and has not returned them.”

“And you mind,” I jest, “Though your appearance does not consume  _you_?”

His eyes are still silver, even in competition with Telperion. “I only take what is mine.”

“And sometimes, not even that,” Makalaurë observes, so quietly I barely make out the words. Beside me, Maitimo stiffens.

He rises, as abrupt as one so graceful can be. “Let us go in,” he says. “We should not be late.”

 

Arafinwë, Ëarwen, and my golden-haired cousins are all ringed round Finwë and Indis. My father and mother, my brothers and sister—they are here too.

I see the remaining five Fëanorians, but I do not see Aunt Nerdanel.

Nor do I see my uncle.

The feast begins without him.  

 

My—our—grandfather’s tables are arranged for dining so that the vast center of his throne-room is left open. I remember dances, year in and year out, where breathless maidens whirled in my arms, happy to have a prince for a partner even if he was not their first choice.

(Maitimo, of course, was the first choice. After charming Findaráto, and smooth-voiced Makalaurë, I was lucky to be a distant fourth.)

Grandfather Finwë still holds dances, but I pray there will not be one tonight. The wine is too sweet; it swells my throat. I am seated between Carnistir, who makes no conversation, and my sister, who makes too much. I am very fond of Írissë, despite her occasional taunts, but every jibe and jest seems too sharp tonight. Let there be no dancing—the very revelry of it would tempt our fate.

_Fate?_

I swallow the rest of my wine.

 

I am not Makalaurë. If I am remembered in our people’s songs, I know not for what it will be. All my own playing is composed of his work or someone else’s, save for the rhymes that tell of bright homes and smiling hopes. Makalaurë sings of tragedy and triumph; I have not the talent—if talent, indeed, it is.

 

We do not dance, but we throng and gather between the tables, many with a goblet still in hand. Írissë darts off to find Tyelko, since they have been fast friends almost since her birth. Turukáno’s dark head is bent close to Findaráto’s light one; they seem to be examining something, likely a piece of jewelry or a scrap of parchment.

As ever, I seek out Maitimo, but before I can speak to him, the door of the hall flies open.

It is Fëanáro. He wears robes as red as a wound, and there is a naked sword in his hand.

All the assembled draw back against the walls, the edges of the tables. It is like Fëanáro has cut himself a path without even trying.

Or perhaps he is always trying.

“My son,” Grandfather Finwë says, rising from the seat he held until now. There is an expression on his fair face that I belatedly recognize as fear. “How come you here, late and—”

“Uninvited?” Fëanáro’s face gleams like a white gem, each facet sharp and fractured. “Pray continue your celebrations, for it seems clear to me that my absence denies you no contentment.”

Atar steps forward, and I am cold all over. Atar is always wise, often grave, and does not choose a fight if he does not need to—except with his elder half-brother. “Dare you to speak to our father in such a way, in his own hall?”

There is a gasp around me, around the room, but Fëanáro smiles like he anticipated, even  _wanted,_ such words. I see silver flicker in the light. He is turning the blade slightly in his hand, like the switching tail of a cat.

“Ñolofinwë,” Grandfather Finwë warns. “Do not—”

“Nay, let him!” Fëanáro answers. “Let him shame me, in the hall of his father—a hall he loves as much as the father, I deem.”

These are cruel words, and I flinch beneath them, but Atar’s voice steadies a little as he draws closer to my uncle. His brow is heavy with judgment, though, and that is when I know that nothing good will come of such closeness.

Long have my uncle and cousins forged true swords in secret; I am not complicit in deed but in silence. I know them too well not to know of this, and I have loved them too well to speak of it, even to Atar.

I think of this, too, when that deadly blade of secret make flashes high and sharp, level with my father’s heart.

 

Never has my uncle lifted his hand against any of his sons. Yet, I have seen them bear bruises of their own making after quarrels with him—Tyelkormo and Carnistir fight with each other or with my brothers, and once I even came upon Maitimo in their forge, beating a misshapen shield with his fists until his hands blackened and bled.

“Russandol!” I cried, though I had intended to slip away without a word.

The shield fell from the bench and clattered at his feet. He faced me, and I saw the rage flame in his eyes before he quenched it quickly with a smile so false it grated at my heart.

“Cousin,” he said. “Forgive me, I—”

It was unlike him. At least, unlike him as I know him—carefree and noble, the least quick-tempered of all my Fëanorian cousins, save Makalaurë.

Certainly, the kindest.

“You have injured yourself,” I said, and though I spoke as my mother might, I felt too young beside him.

“It is nothing.” He would not meet my gaze.

“What troubles you?” I knew, even before I asked, that only one conflict—one name—could answer that question.

“Naught but myself,” he answered, and turned his back on me, his gleaming hair swinging over his shoulders, drawing what little light there was in the shadowy forge.

I am stubborn and swift to anger. We both know this. More might I have expected him to come upon me, foolishly venting my frustration against some small matter, than to find him in the throes of a fury that looked too much like grief. “He has been unjust to you, has he not?”

“Káno.” His voice was pleading.

“You ought not to suffer for his…” I knew I could not say all that I wanted. I could not repeat what was said in Tirion, in my father’s house, by servants and nobles alike. I knew, too, that he could see me holding back. “You ought not to suffer for him,” I managed at last. “Do not ruin your hands.”

His shoulders lifted rather than lightened. Pride, I thought, instead of comfort. He half-turned so that I could see the faultless line of brow and nose and chin, nearly concealed by a curtain of hair. I could not see his eyes.

Softly, he said, “I am his eldest son. For him, I would ruin more than my hands.”

 

I move to dash forward, but I am stilled, with my father’s name unspoken on my tongue. A hand has closed round my wrist like a manacle, and looking down, I find that it is Maitimo’s hand. His grip is like iron. Seeing his knuckles gone white and bloodless, I almost wish that there  _were_  bruises there, if only so that I could witness some sign of life and anger in him, rather than the mask of death he seems to wear.

“You would take my birthright from me,” Fëanáro hisses. Even his voice is twisted by some darkness, some shape I cannot make out in the torchlight, in the glow of Telperion beyond the windowpanes. “You would rob me of my creation, of my own life’s blood.”

There is no other sound in that great hall; every breath is held. Turukáno and Írissë look at me, childlike fear on their faces, and I look back at Maitimo, imagining that the same fear is mine. Maybe it is.

There is blood staining his lip; he must have bitten it through. I wrench my hand, still in his grasp, but he does not let go.

My father’s face is calm. I am far from him, farther than a son should be, especially now. But keen are the eyes of the Eldar, keen are  _my_ eyes, and I see that his shine bright with tears.

I have never seen my father weep.

“Fëanáro!” our grandfather thunders, and yet his feet are like stones sunk deep in the floor; he does not move. The room trembles—we must all breathe, must we not?—and then freezes again when my father’s hand closes around the tip of the blade.

“ _Atar_!” I call out, but it as if he does not hear me.

My father, the second prince, who looks more like a king to me than my uncle ever could, drags the point closer to his breast.

Blood runs bright through his fingers, yet he makes no sound.

The blade does not tremble. Nothing could soften Fëanáro’s heart, I am sure. Nothing—my aunt is not here to reason or beg. His sons are silent. I hear Maitimo’s voice ringing in memory:

 _For him, I would ruin more than my hands_.

I wonder if my father, gripping that wicked edge, feels the same. I wonder if, after everything, my father still loves my uncle.

I do not wish to understand such love—such love that would tear at peace and test at patience.

(And yet.)

“You,” Fëanáro says, just as I am sure that my father will force the cutting of his own throat, “Do not deserve the honor of such a death.”

The sword falls. My uncle leaves it there, leaves us all there, a crowd of stiff-robed butterflies pinned to the walls of the throne-room.

Maitimo releases me. It is then that I realize—or at least, that I suspect—that he held me back not to save my father, or me, but only to see what my uncle would do.

“I must go,” he says, like one in a dream, and I feel my anger rise.

“You would follow him anywhere,” I spit. “And you would call it love and duty.”

I want him to ask me what I would call it. He bows his head and strides after Fëanáro without another word.


	2. Chapter 2

A day passes. It is a dreadful day. I find myself wondering, quite blasphemously, if the Valar understand our ways at all. Could they imagine that Laurelin’s radiance would ever be a curse more than a blessing? Yet in grief, so it is.

My father has shut himself in his rooms and will not even allow his wife to attend him. Turukáno has done likewise, and that leaves me with Arakáno, who looks to me for guidance in all things, and Írissë, who keeps swearing under her breath.

On the third profane iteration of Ulmo’s underwater pursuits, I wheel around. “Írissë!” I shout, except that I do not thunder so well as our father does and it sounds more to my ears like a yelp.

“ _What_?” She looks on the verge of tears. “Tyelkormo is a Vala-damned  _fool_  and I’m never speaking to him again,” she announces, as if I was chiding her for thoughts of her cousins, and not for peppering our little brother’s ears with filthy words.

Arakáno buries his face in his hands and I rub his shoulder absently. I am only the eldest of four, not seven. I never mastered Maitimo’s knack of soothing tears and scrapes.

My chest tightens like ill-fitted armor. I do not wish to think of Maitimo.

“Írissë,” I say, more calmly. “There is nothing we can do.”

The guests left in panicked knots, their voices fraying together like old harp-strings. My mother ran forward to bind my father’s injured hand in a handkerchief. Grandfather Finwë collapsed on his throne.

And I stood by, useless, though I followed no one.

 

Did they go home? I try to picture them riding, seven and one, stabling their horses at the borders of Tirion. There would Aunt Nerdanel be, waiting in the doorway, her capable hands on her hips. And then, what? My cousins would tumble inside, kicking off their boots and tossing aside their cloaks—but all in silence. All while they waited for their father to command, to challenge, to reason.

 _Reason._  As if he ever does.

I am so angry I could weep, and perhaps I will. I walk to the garden and remember our laughter there, only the evening before. Will I ever sit with them so easily again, those cousins I loved like brothers? Nay, I loved them better than brothers, sometimes, for I never squabbled with them like I did Turukáno. They are older than I—Maitimo especially has always seemed so wise, so mature. He used to carry me in his arms when I was a babe. We have long memories, and I remember that.

I drag my fingers through my plaited hair, and they come away draped in golden thread.

 

I sit at the mirrored table in my chambers, and find myself looking more often at the smoky glass depths than at the book in my hands. So it is that I catch a hint of movement in the recesses of shadow pooling behind the lamps.

“Who is it?”

The lack an answer tells me. I slam the book down and rise.

“How did you get in here?”

“Servants’ quarters,” Maitimo answers, stepping into the light. He is dressed to travel, in a dark cloak and high boots. His hair is braided back, as if for riding, and there are no rings in his ears.  

“You knew a secret way in through  _our_  servants’ quarters, and never told me of it?”

“The errands were…rather private.” Maitimo smiles, and I will not be softened by it, so I steel myself into cold disdain as he adds, “Your father hires such comely maidservants.”

“You should not speak of my father or his household,” I answer, and my voice sounds not like Ñolofinwë’s but like Fëanáro’s. This stops me, and it stops Maitimo, who has to visibly restrain himself from shuddering. I find no satisfaction in the effect of my words.

“I apologize, Findekáno,” he says softly, sweeping the elegant fingers of his right hand through the fringe that slants across his brow. I think he does that so that he need not meet my gaze. “I did not come here to jest.”

“Why _did_ you come here?”

His teeth catch at his lip, which is swollen and sore-looking from the harshness of that same habit last night. He winces, and says, “To say farewell.”

I knew that as soon as I saw him, and yet I am a fool, for my breath falls short in my throat as if I am surprised.

“Farewell?”

“The Valar have ordered my father to stand before them,” he says. “They will mete out punishment as they see fit.”

 _Punishment. From the Valar._  I have never shared Fëanáro’s distrust of them. I have offered prayers. I have mused upon their beauty, their peerless foresight.

I might never have feared them, had I not been cursed with such cousins.

Cursed or blessed, or both. In grief, so it is.

“What do you think it will be?” My voice is shaking. I sound like a child again. Maitimo is always so capable of reducing me to a child: all admiration and awe, and heart-stung worry.

“I do not think brother has yet turned blade against brother in such a fashion,” he answers. He looks immensely weary, as if he has not slept, but he does not sit down. “So I cannot tell you what I even hope for.”

“But you will go with him.” It is not a question.

“Aye.”

“And your brothers.”

“Aye.”

“And your mother?”

His face twists at last—the mask slipping. “Our mother will not,” he says, voice sunken almost to a whisper. “It is not her sin.”

“But it is yours?” My fists clench. I want to seize him by the shoulders and shake him, or hold him there, so that he cannot leave me. “It is your sin, that your father made such a blade and turned it to such an end?”

Maitimo laughs, a sound like a clattering shield. “I held the hilt of that sword by his anvil when he beat it to such deadly thinness. I helped him hone the edge that cut open your father’s flesh. Send me from your sight, Káno. It was greedy of me to come at all.”

“You are not greedy,” I say, fierce and stubborn as only our house can be. “Prideful, yes. Foolish, yes. No, do not laugh. Russandol, I cannot bear to see you laugh.”

His eyes are too bright for anyone’s comfort, his or mine. “Would you rather see me weep?”

_I would rather see you stay. You, and all of your stupid kin._

“Did you come alone?” I ask, rather than answering.

“Yes. I have messages for your sister, and our cousins…” His voice trails away. “My father is angry, Káno. I bid them stay with him, and hope he will not notice my brief absence. We leave before dawn.”

“Your father,” I tell him, through my gritted teeth, “Is mad.”

He is biting his broken lip again. “Believe what you will. You are justly…justly grieved. But he is still my father.”

“And his sins are yours,” I say, suddenly scalding, expressing a figment of bitterness I knew not that I possessed, “Even if they should hew  _my_ father to the ground.”

His eyes flash. He is angry, too, though I do not think it is at me. “He did not kill him.”

“A grace and kindness, surely, that my father still lives.” When did I become so brutal? Was it all in the course of a day? “Tell me, Nelyafinwë—” I watch and wait for his flinch, and this time, it does satisfy me—“Did you hold me back to save me from my father’s fate, or to forestall Fëanáro’s order that you deliver me the same?”

“ _Káno_.” He has gone so pale I think he might faint, but for the ugly bruise on his mouth. Blood is his sign of life. “I would sooner maim myself than raise a hand against you. Do you not know that?”

I hate myself for my words, for causing him to suffer more. I lashed out and he bore it, another blazing stripe added to the rest. He is here defying his father’s fury—I do not doubt that Fëanáro will rain down fire on anyone who shows friendship to Atar’s house now. And this is the thanks I have in my heart?

“I am sorry,” I cry, and I bury my face in my hands, because I am about to weep, and I must not.

“Not those words,” Maitimo says quickly, and I feel his hands on my shoulders, steadying me. “Not from you.”

I stay very still, my tears searing my fingertips. I fancy his touch remains, keeping me standing, keeping some of my pride aloft, but when I open my eyes, I am alone.

 

“Banished,” Írissë says flatly. “Our own kin.” She tears the letter Tyelko left her into a thousand feathered shreds.

 

“My lord high prince,” the courier says, bowing deeply. I hide my grimace—how I hate the title, and all it portends. “There is a letter from you from Formenos. Will you accept it?”

I snatch it from his hands and hurry away, forgetting even to thank him.

When I unfold it, I see that it is painfully thin. Still, I read it too quickly.

 

 _Dear Findekáno_ ,

_We have settled in Formenos. You remember it, I am sure, as a wild and hilly land well-suited to adventuring. How boldly we mapped it out in boyhood!_

_The fortress here is somewhat in disrepair, but the work will keep us busy. The cold nights provide incentive to make firmer walls._

_I trust that this letter finds you well, if not quite—happy, I was about to write. If I scratched out the word you would suspect it more, and paper is too precious to write this over again._

_News, also, has reached me of my mother. I understand that my aunt Anairë, your mother, has welcomed her into her home. I thank her for this great kindness, and ask only that you give my mother what cheer you can. Well do I know you to be capable of cheering even the darkest hearts._

_I send no news of my own to her, for it would only bring her grief._

_You are the high prince now, and, I assume, have a golden circlet to match the thread you braid into your hair. Káno and I agree, by the way, that the style suits you._

_I can see you smiling despite the anger you must bear. I will close, for it is not fair of me to demand smiles from any of my cousins, least of all you._

_Forgive me, Káno—or better yet, forget me, for I am sure only to fail you again._

_Russandol_

_P: I have just realized that it must be very vexing to be referred to by the same name as Kanafinwë. Neither of you ever complain about it, though._

The day is warm beyond my windows. Laurelin is shining on our blessed city, on our unholy race. My hands tighten, and I nearly crumple the letter in my thoughtlessness. Carefully, I smooth out its folds and tuck it in my desk.

 

We have long memories, I think.


End file.
